From “Lich Priests of the Lightfather” by Farham P. Licht-Steig

The Dreyy have an odd custom in their otherwise standard worship of the Lightfather: they do not allow the living to advance past the level of a lay priest in their sanctums. Only the sorcerous dead, raised from their sleep by magic or by their own indomitable will, may serve.

By holding to this custom, the Dreyy ensure that their priests own no worldly goods and are tempted by no worldly concerns. For once their inheritances have been given and their troubles laid to rest, they should have unfettered time for the Lightfather, who they may even have encountered in passing through the liminal spaces betwixt life and death.

In the eyes of some–few Dreyy but many outsiders–this is little but an ill-considered way of giving over authority to liches. For only those who consent or who have some command of spellcraft and mastery of the self will rise, and it is all too easy for a power-hungry mortal to gain what is in essence an eternal position and license to dabble in the arcane. There are even dark rumors of those who have slain themselves, in clear violation of the Lightfather’s teachings, that they might be raised in his ‘service.’

The Dreyy are quick to point out that none of their undead clerics has ever been known to behave in that matter. A skeptic might add a single addendum to that: “…yet.”